Determinism
by khobarbie
Summary: Another clichéd Klance healing pod fic. Keith is angsty. Lance is fabulous. (He also gets injured almost irreparably on a mission.) Fluff and Angst. My first fanfiction. Yay.


**Just a warning - this fanfiction is my first and is pretty much just an amalgamation of shitty clichés that I put together at 4AM on an iPad 2. But read it anyway. My Twitter is Selenotropic15 if you decide you actually like this. Also, disclaimer, yadda yadda. Let the fanfiction begin! (Oh wait, before I start, this is a a KLANCE. As in Keith x Lance. From Voltron Legendary Defender. If you're a fucking homophobe like my mother - and to be frank if you are I don't know why you're on this yaoi-infested website - then don't read this, k?) Again. Selenotropic15 and LET THE FANFICTION BEGIN**

It happened so suddenly. So distant from determinism.

After months and months of denial, of disbelief, of rumpled sheets, of thirsty sessions in the training room. His feeling like, like, he was going to implode. Telling himself that that luminous smile wasn't for him. That he wasn't utterly infatuated with the curve of his movements, the ease of his bubbling laugh, his homesickness, buried deep within.

And then, a wondrous epiphany. A touch, a glimpse, a moment. And an unfurling of a thousand flowers in his stomach that had been crushed by his misery and doubt and self-hatred, and the hundreds of whimsical butterflies that accompanied them. A flutter, a beat of a motionless wing. The palpitation of new love.

Of first love.

A day was wasted if Keith didn't see him. And if he did see him, even if he merely passed him, Keith heaved himself into an alcove of the ship afterwards and sighed and breathlessly catalogued new things he'd noticed in his love's profile: the artful charcoal smudge of shadow across his face, the seductive jut of a snake hip. How adorable his dorkiness was. How beautifully he described the sea; how he revealed himself to be a painting, a snafu of solemn blues and longing. How much Keith wanted to grab him in the middle of his stupidly hilarious joke and kiss away his mouth, eliminate it completely.

And then how the burning of his love ran rampant, how he wanted to write bad poetry for this boy, this mouthy enigma, how he wanted to draw the convergence of this hands, of their skin, the lilac crush of their bodies, how he wanted to learn Spanish and serenade him. He couldn't contain himself. How he confessed his love but not to the right guy. Keith haltingly whispering, 'I love Lance' to Shiro in the warm turquoise lighting of the control room. And Shiro grinning, and saying, 'I know', and telling Keith how lucky he was to be in love for the first time, and gazing at Allura as she tapped at the control pad, utterly absorbed. There was verse in love, Keith thought dreamily, as Shiro approached Allura, as he ran the words 'I love Lance' along his tongue, noting its mellifluousness.

Yes, his glowers at Lance became secret, treasured. But some of the anger remained, becoming ugly, jealous, searing. When Lance returned to the ship one afternoon, still in his paladin gear, loudly laughing and blushing with Hunk. As Keith walked into the room, all set to join in with the laughter, he saw Pidge's worried glance at him. His smile fell away from his face. Eyebrows furrowed, his gait increased as he powered toward Lance.

"What's going on?" he murmured roughly.

"Lance has an alien girlfriend!" Hunk said, frowning a little.

Keith's heart dropped. Pidge looked at him, concerned and understanding. He met her lucid gaze and she seemed to reassure him with her eyes, and then her busy hands preoccupied themselves with work once more. Keith, dying inside, tears nearly shed, utterly broken, looked to Lance with a miniscule and entirely forced smile.

"It was just a kiss!" Lance bursted. Keith's mask cracked momentarily, and he was visibly crestfallen. He didn't even seem to note Lance's lack of characteristic pride in his 'charm' with the ladies. "It was a kiss on the cheek, I swear. Keith-" Lance's smile had dropped off his face long ago. His eyebrows ('Thin and shapely, like Lance himself,' Keith thought cheesily) drew together, and his molten brown eyes darkened, saddened, and he looked at his hands. His (delectable) lips parted and hope instilled itself within him once more. The tumult of emotion in Lance made Keith fall in love with him again. "Keith. I told their people that they'd be safe from the Galra with Team Voltron around. They were terrified. Broken. And they were… Happy when they heard that someone would help them." Keith felt sick.

Pidge looked at Lance disbelievingly. "Hunk, I think now would be a good time for you to go and get some Altean goo," she intoned darkly. "I'll finish up soon and join you." She waved a hand at Keith and Lance – "You two continue your umm… Homoerotic angst fest," she muttered under her breath, shaking her head and continuing to press at her tablet.

"Keith, I swear…"

A beat passed. Keith wanted to hide, like he always did. "No. Congrats, Lance," Keith said, his voice rough around the edges and a tad acerbic. He turned away, but before he left a rare bout of emotion escaped him: "I mean, it's not like we're a couple, right?"

He walked out, shoulders heaving almost imperceptibly, not seeing the way Lance's frown, strange in his usually jovial face, deepened and grew confused.

The day after, alarms sang out through the ship. Galra. Keith stopped his training exercise, pulled his dark hair back into a messy ponytail and changed into his gear. He clambered into his lion, placing his hands on her control panel, sliding in tune with her. And so the paladins soared into a new unknown.

Fathoms into the curlicues of space, the battle began. It wasn't easy.

Keith was getting stuck into battle. He reveled in the fire created and felt as if he were in his element as he watched destruction and chaos reign. He soon noticed that the Galra didn't really fight back per se; they just kept sending more and more ships out to fight. It didn't take long for Keith to discover that all of this was simply a ruse. When he did, he was face to face with a Goliath, a ship of immense proportions and armaments. And it was shooting at him. He darted away from it but every inch of the ship was armed, and no matter how he tried to evade its attack, he sustained damage.

"Guys! I'm taking a lot of damage from this ship! And I can't get away! It's HU-" His lion was suddenly thrown backward by the force of a particularly hefty explosive shot from the ship and his comms were cut off, the end of his message punctuated by a shout of pain from him. His head thrown back, whiplash threatening to ensue, and white creeping into the corners of his eyes, he heard a muffled noise over the crackling of the comms and the angry warning bleeps his lion was emitting. "KEITH!" Lance screamed.

Keith shook off the pain to focus on the sound of his love's voice. He produced a tired, grim laugh and tried to regain his control. His lion raged through his mind, telling him that she'd have to pause momentarily to retain circuitry. He roared and stared at the Galra ship.

And then, a lithe, robotic blue lion swooped in from above Red and targeted the ship's underbelly. Keith gasped and lurched forwards, Lance's name slipping out from the cage of his lips. Hunk quickly caught on to Lance's plan and barreled in to shoot at the ship's underbelly, as did Shiro. Keith watched with bated breath, hope building.

Triumph resonated within him as the ship exploded, a conflagration of orange and white and the ashes of the Galra.

Keith's heart dropped.

The Goliath nosedived right before it's ultimate demise.

Lance wasn't quick enough.

The blue lion wasn't quick enough.

Keith began to feel faint. He couldn't hear. He could taste bile in his mouth and an unspeakable sadness in his stomach. And then he began to panic.

Lance couldn't be dead.

Lance had a family. Lance's smile could light up cities. Lance was the laughter that bound Voltron together, the reassurance that everything would be alright.

The boy who kept Keith together, who kept him dreaming, feeling.

It happened so suddenly.

Lance couldn't be dead.

Lance couldn't be dead.

Lance couldn't be dead.

Keith suddenly jerked his lion forward toward that tiny blue dot falling into the void. He could hear someone shouting at him over the comms – probably Shiro – but he tuned it out. Hysterically, he imagined Lance beside him, singing those awful fucking pop songs he liked so fucking much – that he likes so fucking much – fuck! He could hear more shooting. His head filled with rage, the redness pressing against his skull – Galra.

And then he heard 'blue lion' over the comms and listened.

It was Allura. Her voice was watery.

"Keith… Head to the planet Luctus. The blue lion has miraculously… Landed there." Her voice cracked. "The other paladins will take care of the situation here. This seems to be the last wave."

Keith was gone.

Even as Keith approached Luctus, he could see that the blue lion was no more. It was broken, decimated.

He crashed down on the abandoned desert planet and ran to Lance's lion. The lion's entire right side had been torn off, most probably from the harsh crash onto the rocks of Luctus. He hurried in.

He stopped breathing.

"Lance?" he whispered softly.

Lance was fragmented. He did not lie in a pool of blood. There was almost no blood on him. He looked as if he were sleeping. However, as Keith looked closer, he saw unnatural juts of bone and organ pressing out at Lance's paladin gear from within. Keith had to suppress vomit.

Lance's chest heaved. His duck-feather hair was matted. His eyes – the beautiful chocolate eyes Keith loved so, so much – were closed, their wrinkled and vulnerable eyelids heavy half moons in a newly aged face.

Keith fell to the floor and crawled over. "Lance," he whispered, over and over, a chant, willing him back to life. He wanted to touch him, he wanted to kiss his forehead as if he really was sleeping, to twist his hair in his fingers.

Then his practical side kicked in as he saw how utterly unresponsive Lance was. He knew from his brief studies at flight school that you weren't supposed to move someone this – shattered. He threw off his helmet, barely noting the destroyed state of the interior of the blue lion. With a crushed feeling in his heart, he remembered when he'd been pressed against Lance and the other paladins in this lion before as Lance gleefully looped in the air. Lance's energy was intoxicating.

Keith searched the lion for a first aid kit, an Altean potion, anything. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Keith slid his arms underneath Lance and gently supported his body.

"Lance, can you hear me? Lance?" he said clearly, using his trembling fingers to prop open his eyelids.

Lance's eyes slowly opened of their own accord. Keith breathed a sign of relief. But his love's eyes were milky. And he remained eerily silent.

"Lance?" Keith said, panic growing.

Lance's eyes fluttered closed and then open.

"…Keith?" he moaned. (Keith, despite himself, blushed like Jane Bennet.)

"Yes. It's Keith. Lance, can you tell me where it hurts?" Keith said softly, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

"Keith… Everything hurts, Keith…" Lance's groaning grew louder.

Keith was silent. He didn't know what to say or do. Luckily, Lance was a great talker, even when on the brink of death.

"Hey… Are they… Your arms around me?" Lance questioned, a smile wearily forming on his face.

Keith went to remove his arms from Lance, but was alarmed by Lance trying to move his arm to stop him. This, of course, resulted in a loud scream of pain.

"Lance! You fucking idiot!" Keith hissed.

Lance's face was warped with pain. Silent howls wrenched themselves from his body.

Keith's arms tightened protectively around him.

Lance smiled through the pain, and moved his head to nuzzle into Keith. Keith, surprised, moved away and stared at him.

Lance stared back.

Keith heard crackled sounds from his helmet. He hurriedly went to pick it up and listened to the message.

"The Galra fleet has been eliminated." Shiro intoned through the comms, clearly exhausted. "…How bad is he, Keith?"

Keith glanced at Lance, who was gazing back at him intently with those still gorgeous eyes. "Really bad," he murmured.

"Can you move him?"

"No. He's sustained considerable internal damage. He can't move. He's awake, though – but I don't know for how much longer," he tapered off, turning away from Lance.

"Okay," Shiro said. "Okay."

Keith waited for a couple of minutes.

"I'll carry the blue lion to the ship. Hunk and Pidge, you carry the red lion."

Murmurs of assent rang out.

Keith turned back to Lance. His body was convulsing.

"LANCE!" he cried, rushing to him and cradling his body as if it were precious.

Lance immediately stopped convulsing.

"Oh my god," Keith breathed, pressing his forehead against Lance's, his hot tears rolling intimately down his face and onto Lance's parted lips. He felt the fevered brush of eyelashes against his skin and immediately shuffled back. He stared down at Lance hopefully.

"Keith…" he murmured.

"Lance…" Keith started, his eyebrows drawing together, "Why the fuck did you go in on the Galra ship like that?" he shouted, fat tears rolling down his cheeks, "Stupid!"

Lance looked taken aback.

Keith's shoulders were heaving. He wiped the tears away quickly as he stared down at Lance and then turned away, pretending to search for the paladins in the sky as he stitched the pieces of his heart back together.

"No…" Lance muttered. "Keith… I might not… Make it."

"Don't say that!" Keith snapped, tears in his voice. He flinched at how his remark echoed.

"Come here, Keith," Lance said, his eyes tracking him doubtfully.

Keith sat beside Lance. He tremblingly sighed and stared at the ceiling, at anywhere but Lance.

"Keith, look at me."

Keith didn't respond.

"Keith, please… I'm fucking… Dying… Don't do this to me…" Lance said, tears escaping him.

Keith looked at him. He felt as if he'd been hit.

Lance smiled sadly. And then he laughed, and then he groaned out with pain at how painful it was to laugh. "Keith… Keith… You have… Such pretty eyes, Keith…"

Keith's eyes snapped open.

Lance's hand shifted across the floor to slide over Keith's hand.

Keith clasped it in both hands, sitting up and staring at Lance, shocked. _It's nothing, he's dying, help him, he's getting delusional, help him, save me, he's dying_

Lance started to convulse again, and Keith died a little inside. He felt useless. All he could do was hold him, so he did, he slid his arms under and around him and held him close. Lance suddenly settled, but he looked pale. His eyes were fluttering closed once more.

"Keith," and this time Lance sounded completely drained. Like he was speaking from far away. Keith could feel his tiny puffs of warm breath on his chest. "I see you. I want you to know that before I… go. I see you." Keith's eyes widened. Lance's eyes closed. "And… _Te amo_."

Keith couldn't feel his breathing anymore.

He shook Lance. "Lance, what does that mean? What does that mean? Lance?" Keith cried, uninhibited.

Keith curled his hands into the correct form for CPR and pressed them against Lance's chest in time. And a short puff of breath was emitted from Lance's lips.

Keith sagged against the wall. He could feel Shiro's lion picking the blue lion from the sand and rock and he could feel space pressing in around him, endless. No heaven, no hell. Just an abyss anyone can fall into. No majesty in the stars, just gas and fire.

Even Coran's face was grey and grave when he saw Lance's condition back at the ship. He dressed Lance in a hospital gown and carefully placed him in a healing pod.

"I don't want to leave him," Hunk started, looking gaunt and senescent, drained of even his quiddity, "But… I'm so tired. So tired."

It was Shiro who spoke first. "We've had a very, very long day. We should all get some rest. Lance isn't in danger any more," he said.

One by one, they trailed out. The last one left was Shiro. "I understand if you have to stay, Keith, but I don't think Lance will be coming out of the pod any time soon-" He was quelled by an icy look from Keith. "Okay. Okay." He nodded, and walked out. As he left, he looked back at Keith, sat against a pod, staring up at Lance's face, simultaneously accusing, confused and unconditionally worried.

Keith sat there for four days. Other paladins came in and stared at Lance and provided Keith with trays of space goo. On the morning of the fifth day, Shiro marched in. He yanked Keith up from his place on the floor. "Keith. I am the leader of Voltron. As your leader, I am ordering you to go and get changed from this gear and to go and have a shower. And get some sleep." When Keith started to complain, Shiro shushed him and said, "Do you really wanna smell and look like Jabba the Hutt when Lance gets out of that healing pod? No. I'll stay here as watch in the meantime. Go. Now."

With a longing look at Lance, Keith was gone. When he came back, his hair smelled like a flower garden and felt like silk. His skin was glowing. At Shiro's raised eyebrow, he blushed embarrassedly and stared at the floor intently.

Lance had been in the pod for six days. Keith was losing hope. The bags under his eyes were returning. He had lost most of his faith that Lance would survive. He had tried shouting at people, tried getting answers as to why his love wasn't waking up, but to no avail.

Then. A hiss. The door of the healing pod opened. Keith's head snapped up. He was on his feet in a matter of seconds. He stepped toward the healing pod as it opened slowly. And then a heavy, warm and thin Lance fell toward him.

Keith rushed and caught him in his arms. He held him indulgently, hands on his waist, foreheads pressed together, for a couple of minutes. He was about to draw away when he felt a hand lacing tentatively through his black hair. He hadn't been touched in so long. A halting exhalation escaped from Keith's mouth.

A small smile grew on Lance's face.

This is usually the part where the couple confess their undying love for one another and live together forevermore. But Keith and Lance were red and blue, fire and water. Isolated constants in the midst of chaos, far from determinism. (And they were kinda stupid, too.)

Lance retired to his room and dealt with the nightmares - the nightmares about the feeling of being dead, the cold nothingness pressing against his face, the nightmares about never seeing his family again. The nightmares about never telling Keith how he felt.

Keith lost himself in combat. He slashed at endless enemies with his bayard, and lived in the cavernous white of the training room. Until eventually, he slid down the training room wall, completely enervated. He wanted answers. He wanted answers in the form of Lance, pressing his hand against his, igniting his skin with his gaze.

He barely even noticed when Shiro marched in again, only ousted from his dark thoughts when Superdad was right in front of him.

"Keith, this is stupid," Shiro started. "You love Lance, right?" Keith nodded and looked at him as if he were stupid. "Listen, I never thought someone as beautiful, amazing, intelligent, brave, caring… beautiful, smart, amazing, fantastic and wonderful as Allura would even look at me, let alone date me. But I went and asked, and look at us now! She's still amazing, intelligent and beautiful – and I get front row seats to her being wonderful every day." He paused momentarily to consider how lucky he was. Keith thought, ' _whipped_ '.

"Just tell Lance how you feel, okay?" Keith looked astounded and appalled. "One day, one of you won't come out of that healing pod alive. Don't regret not telling him."

Just thinking about Lance's cold form on his lion made Keith feel sick. He couldn't. He had to find out what Lance had said that day. He couldn't live with himself if whatever miniscule chance he had with Lance was stolen away.

"I'll do it," he agreed slowly.

 _'I can't do it,_ ' he thought, panicked, as he stood outside Lance's door. He was getting ready to leave. He was going to leave and hide in his bed and forget this ever happened-

Lance's door swooshed open. Lance was standing in his room, swinging his hips to some extraordinarily loud music and pulling on a t-shirt. His hair was wet. As was his chest. So the t-shirt clung to his chest. And of course, Keith's mouth went dry and he couldn't breathe.

 _'Damn, my author must've been into some deep, dark pit of clichés to pull this one on me,'_ he thought.

Lance was also using a hairbrush to mime the singing in the song. Obnoxiously.

He was then made aware of Keith's astonished presence at his door. He fell over, pulled himself up, scrambled over to his phone, pressed pause, threw the hairbrush in the bathroom and pulled a towel over his hair. He looked like a disgruntled seal pup, which Keith thought was quite frankly adorable.

"Oh hey, Keith!" Lance exclaimed, panicked. He tried to lean on his bedframe and fell over. Keith rushed to pick him up. The feel of Lance's body, wet and warm and smooth (because somehow Keith's hand had ventured under Lance's top as he caught him, OF COURSE) was fiery pleasure to Keith's fingertips. The feel of his breath, hot and candy-smelling and alive against Keith's vulnerable collarbone ignited his long-dead senses.

Lance moved up against Keith's body (more heat in an unwanted region) and somehow their faces were aligned, both pairs of eyes closed, just breathing in each other.

And then they pulled away.

They stood in silence for what felt like eras. Keith was pretty sure that when he left Lance's room he would find all of the paladins were mere skeletons and a new form of intelligent life, the Dorito-men, would have enslaved the entire universe.

 _'Ok, what the fuck,'_ Keith thought.

Keith was pretty sure he was gonna get turned into a colander if the tension in the room needled him any longer, so he was brief.

"What were you saying on the ship, Lance?"

"Umm… What?"

"I don't get it. What you said. On the ship. And I had to try and figure it out while I sat for six days waiting for you to get up. And I couldn't. So explain."

"Wow, you have such a way with words, Keith!" Lance stalled jokingly.

Keith blushed, embarrassed. Lance's expression grew soft and sympathetic.

"I said I see you."

"..."

"… _Dios mío_ … It means, I see you. I saw you on the first day of flight school, sitting on the edge, looking in at all the other people like they were speaking a different language. I see through you – I see your loneliness, your confusion, your anger. I see how you conceal emotions because you think they're a sign of weakness. And most of all, I see how…"

Keith was shell-shocked by how perceptive Lance was, how every word hit him like a knife. When he attenuated his speech, Keith's eyes narrowed. "How… What?"

Lance looked scared, like he'd ventured into something he hadn't meant to. "Umm… How… Good you are at fighting!" he laughed nervously, scanning Keith's face to see if he'd picked up on the lie.

"That isn't what you were going to say," Keith said, darkness in his expression.

Lance scratched the back of his neck and backed away, fear growing more intense by the second. "Umm, yes it is?"

Keith read Lance's face. "Are you… Embarrassed?"

Lance blushed furiously and averted his eyes.

"You are! Of what you were about to say?" Keith said, the predator switch in his brain clicked on.

Lance backed away more and ran his fingers through his hair anxiously. "Well, I need the bathroom now, so…"

"You are…" Keith stepped toward Lance slowly, mirth dripping from his mouth, seduction in his pace. Lance stepped back. He was literally against a wall. He gulped.

Keith placed a hand beside Lance's head, leaning in and breathing against his ear. "Tell me, Lance…" he whispered. Lance shuddered and barely suppressed a moan. He looked into Keith's eyes, dark and ravening, and decided to give it up.

He heaved a sigh, and stared square into Keith's eyes. "I see how fucking beautiful you are, Keith Kogane."

Keith immediately stepped backwards as if he had been physically slapped. He stared at Lance with doe eyes. "…What?"

 _'Ok, what the FUCK did I just do, and what the SHIT did he just say?'_

"You're beautiful," Lance sighed, taking in how lovely a broken Keith looked.

"I still don't understand…" Keith said, completely unable to process the events that had just taken place.

" _Santo dios_ … Your eyes are beautiful. Your hands are beautiful. Your ears are beautiful. Your body is beautiful. You're lonely but brave at the same; that's beautiful. Even your stupid hair is beautiful. Everything about you is beautiful, Keith."

Keith looked like a light bulb had just switched on in the dark room of his brain. "…And the Spanish was?"

Lance supposed that he couldn't exactly turn back at this point. Closing his eyes and expecting rejection, he muttered, "I said I love you."

"Sorry, what?"

Lance's eyebrows furrowed disbelievingly.

Louder, he said, "I said I love you."

And then a mouth was on his, plush and soft and warm and delicious. He had to open his eyes to make sure it was Keith and that Keith wasn't in a playboy bunny costume like that one dream he'd had that one time to make sure that what was happening was most definitely real, real… It was real. Keith's indigo eyes were closed, their ridiculously long lashes fanning perfectly. They opened when Keith sensed Lance looking at him. Keith stumbled backwards. "Oh shit, I'm so sorry…"

Lance smiled elatedly. "Why?" He whispered, wrenching Keith's mouth open with his own and putting all of his passion and emotion and lust and love into that kiss, letting his torrents of blue water hit Keith's firestorm. He let his tongue roll around Keith's mouth, moaning at how hot it was, how velvety. And then Keith's eyes closed and he pushed Lance against the wall and he ran his hands under Lance's t-shirt and shoved his tongue to dance with Lance's and moaned and Lance put his hands in Keith's hair and then they surfaced for air.

Keith laid his forehead against Lance's and they both opened their eyes and laughed. Keith closed his eyes and said, "I love you. I love you. I love you." Lance heaved under his hands and Keith contorted a little and pressed hot little kisses against Lance's collarbone. Keith bit down a little, experimentally and Lance moaned. And then after every kiss, Keith spoke. Kiss. "I've wanted to do this for so long." Kiss. "You have no idea." "Every time you passed in the hall." Kiss. "I wanted to push you against a wall and touch you like this." Kiss. "I love you." Kiss. "I thought I'd die, I love you so much." Kiss. "I love everything about you." Kiss. "I love you, Lance."

And Lance pulled him into a hug, smiling. "I love you too."

And Keith found the determinism in space.


End file.
